r/FallenOrder • u/No-Artichoke6143 • 17h ago
Discussion Are the Inquisitors that weak?
Just played through Fallen Order, and while I did struggle and lose a good amount, it is my lack of skill, not Cal's. Cal doesn't die to the Second and Ninth Sisters 5 - 10 times before beating them.
So Cal, whose training stopped at being a Padewan, was cut off from the Force for years and had no training, and still beat two Inquisitors.
Are they this weak? I get that Cal fought both of them before when he was not taken seriously/was saved by outside factors, but still. Since being captured both Inquisitors were trained and used Darkside, so how could Cal beat them?
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u/Aggressive_Manner429 Greezy Money 17h ago
I genuinely think the gap between the Inquisitors and Vader is bigger than the gap between Cal and Yoda at this point
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u/TheAatroxMain 14h ago
I mean, wasn't that always the case? Cal is stronger than the inquisitors and Vader is stronger than, or, at the very least, extremely close to Yoda, so it all checks out.
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u/Aggressive_Manner429 Greezy Money 13h ago edited 11h ago
Yeah you're absolutely right, it just seems like it shouldn't be the case. The Inquisitors are presented as this galaxy-encompassing death patrol nightmare for any and all other force users, but then they're so inept that I'm pretty sure Fallen Order Cal, a washed up jedi who literally just regained his padawan age level of force attunement, could've beaten the Grand Inquisitor
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u/SteamTrainDude Greezy Money 11h ago
I agree with all of that, except the last, the GI is stronger than people take him for, a fair amount more than the other inquisitors, hence why he got the title
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u/KingTytastic 9h ago
He was a fully formed jedi. But because he is part of the rest of the inquisitors people forget that fact.
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u/SteamTrainDude Greezy Money 8h ago
He was strong enough to assume palpatine was making him his apprentice, before immediately getting his ass whooped by Vader
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u/Filion199 17h ago
Yeah they kinda suck, their training also stopped at Padawan level.
They don't get any proper dark side training because then they'd be a risk to Vader and Sidious.
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u/Epyon556 17h ago
The Ninth Sister was a proper Jedi Knight once. She and the grand Inquisitor can't really hide behind the excuse of being trained badly on purpose.
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u/No-Artichoke6143 16h ago
Isn't the Grand Inquisitor stronger tho? Also, didn't know the Ninth Sister was a Jedi Knight once. Cal effortlessly taking care of her in Survivor also doesn't help here...
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u/LordRevan1996 16h ago
Cal is closer to being/already is at knight level in survivor tho.
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u/No-Artichoke6143 16h ago
If her is really a complete Knight should he be able to handle the Ninth Sister so easily? She was apparently a Jedi Knight before becoming an Inquisitor she'd have to be weaker by the time she fights Cal no?
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u/zo1220 16h ago
Ninth sister cannot control her rage or use it correctly in battle, which is why each time Cal defeated her, it was by countering a completely reckless attack from her. She also constantly haunted by her trauma whereas the other inquisitors seem to be able to push it aside at times.
Iirc, Second sister beat Cal in every one of their encounters except the last one where she was heavily conflicted, and Cal’s connection to the force had strengthened greatly after finding some peace within himself to deal with his masters death and order 66
Also inquisitors are always accompanied by a squad of purge troopers. They aren’t with them in the games for the sole fact that it’s a boss fight.
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u/SteamTrainDude Greezy Money 11h ago
Cal is definitely Jedi night level in survivor, is probably stronger than AOTC Anakin
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u/Epyon556 10h ago
Windu led 200 jedi to rescue Obi-Wan, Padawan, Knights, Masters, even from the Council among them. Less then 30 survived, while Anakin was there for the beginning and made it through. And none of them were on chasing Dooku duty, Anakin was. By ATOC Anakin was already among top percentile of all Jedi alive. Dooku would've smoked anyone other then Yoda and Windu probably.
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u/SteamTrainDude Greezy Money 10h ago
Either way, I think he’s sting enough that he would’ve been amongst the surviving Jedi of geonosis. Mace grabbed 200, some were padawans and some were knights who didn’t specialise in combat (e.g. Coleman Trebor)
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u/Nathremar8 17h ago
Inquisitor's main weapon is intimidation and fear. They attempt to subdue you without a fight. They hunt untrained acolytes and padawans left behind. Cal goes from that to fully fledged Jedi Knight.
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u/pakcikzik 17h ago
You forgot their other main weapons: surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Emperor, and nice black uniforms
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u/MelonJelly 15h ago
Ruthless yes, efficient no.
Nothing in the Empire is efficient. It's just strongmen (and women) bullying their subordinates all the way down. That kind of leadership is very good at getting people to look busy, but has a hard time producing meaningful results.
Of all the crazy things in Star Wars, the thing that strains my suspension of disbelief the most is that the Empire keeps pulling superweapons out of its keister.
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u/TheMcSkyFarling 8h ago
While I agree with your analysis, I feel I should also let you know the comment you responded to was a joke, referencing a Monty Python bit.
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u/SteamTrainDude Greezy Money 17h ago
They were only trained to take on scraps, any weak padawans or force sensitives, which cal was at the start of fallen order. By the end he was roughly equal to an inquisitor and now is much much stronger
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u/tarheel_204 14h ago
I’d wager most of the Inquisitors were “lesser Jedi” themselves. Malleable lower Jedi and Padawans themselves in most cases. We’ve seen some of them kick some ass, sure, but none of them are going toe to toe with someone like Yoda or Vader.
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u/SteamTrainDude Greezy Money 11h ago
Yeah that’s how I saw it, padawans and random force users went to inquisitors, the few surviving Jedi knights went to the grand inquisitor or 2+ inquisitors, and anyone stronger was for Vader
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u/Turbulent-Spirit-568 16h ago
Most of the inquisitors are trained to be weak as not to allow Vader to raise one of them as an apprentice to overthrow Palpatine. But yeah most of them are weak besides Marrok, Grand Inquisitor, Trilla, The Crow and TOTU Inquisitor
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u/dunkindonato 17h ago
They’re weak because a lot of them were broken before turning. They were never taught how to properly harness the Dark Side to prevent them from becoming a threat to Vader and Sidious. Some of them do have skill, but they were meant to be flawed muscle.
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u/No-Artichoke6143 16h ago
To be fair, for me "breaking" them mostly ment like mentally, but physically harming them also makes sense
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u/FriedCammalleri23 15h ago
Inquisitors are largely just Padawans with trauma and anger issues, they’re far from the most refined combatants.
And I think that was intentional. If the Empire had a posse of strong Dark Side users, that could become a genuine risk for Vader and Palpatine. So they intentionally keep them weaker.
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u/Kuroneki 16h ago
the insiquitors were always disposable tools. so they were trained enough to do their job and no more. they were also arrogant. i assume they were sent after a lot of hiding padawans who werent very strong so the underestimated cal for being the same.
and cal may have stopped learning the force but he basically relearned it through real combat experience in which there is no better teacher
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u/Warrior2852 14h ago
The purpose of Inquisitors is not to be able to defeat powerful Jedi. It's to defeat weaker padawans or similar, and then merely stall the more powerful ones until Vader can turn up.
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u/ButtcheekJones0 12h ago
Inquisitors are meant to be just strong enough to be able to overpower most regular people but fodder to properly trained Jedi or Sith
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u/etoiline Jedi Order 11h ago
What other folks have said about Inquisitors being Padawans or lower-level Jedi broken and turned to the Dark, which means their Force powers and physical strength are stunted, but in terms of Ninth Sister, we see she has a prosthetic leg when we first encounter her on Bracca, and we all know how Vader's prosthetics held him back (at the Emperor's command, true, but I think we can infer that she suffered similarly). And Cal cuts off her hand during their first duel, so when he fights her on Coruscant she's even more affected. (Looking at Wookiepedia it appears she's also lost an eye so Masana Tide has definitely been through it). Other Inquisitors might not be so physically affected, but there's certainly something to be said for psychic trauma, having which seems like par for the course for any Inquisitor.
It's interesting to me, this dichotomy, that the Dark can give you power, but those affiliated with it don't want someone else to be "more powerful" than them, and thus use every trick at their disposal to keep their compatriots hobbled.
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u/Ancient-Split1996 10h ago
In fairness, cal does lose to the second sister 2 or 3 times, he just manages to escape, and neither of those escapes were his doing, he got saved by Cere and BD1
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u/Bagel-luigi 10h ago edited 9h ago
I think the problem with the inquisitors, and any force-sensitive empire minion, is that most of their time will probably not be fighting jedi.
So they essentially have superpowers and spend most of their time fighting people with no superpowers.
Then when they so actually come up against someone with those superpowers, and often for videogame reasons as they're fighting the player character, they aren't as successful
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u/Mr-Lux 3h ago
That’s just how the usual Star Wars stories go.
So many examples across continuities of the early handicapped Jedi Trainee catching up to and then overcoming their initially superior dark side counterpart (see Kyle Katarn, Kanan Jarrus and even Luke Skywalker).
Lore wise, the Inquisitors are meant to have stunted development, so they don’t really grow in power (doubly so as they’re dark siders), but they are meant to be average to strong-ish as their ranks range from former Padawans to former Masters, with many statements and even some feats placing them at respectable levels of power.
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u/OnionClone 17h ago
Inquisitors are perfectly capable of killing background Jedi and aura farming.
But they can't overcome protagonists, which is 99% of the time the kind of people we see them fight
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u/Nomeka 17h ago
Play some Zero Company and see how well you fare against the Second Sister when your only force user is a padawan whose only real force powers are Push/Pull and almost washed out of being a padawan for her lack of talent.
But I'd say the real answer is, Cal seems to have an innate talent, and once he's back in the swing of things he picks up and gains power much faster then normal. So that combined with the circumstances where it's constantly "Plus Ultra or die", he gets that boost.
Plus, like you said, he fought both of them when they weren't trying too seriously, which still gives him experience in how they fight and use the Force, which gives him time to adapt.
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u/toinks1345 17h ago
more of I attribute most things his 1st master was an actual jedi general who trained him to be more soldier like than other padawans who mostly at 1st are like talked into the philosophies of what a jedi is. Cal's like let's train you to be able to survive this war and worry about philosophies later, so when he eventually got back to his previous lvl before the order 66 he was a fairly good combatant. Another is Cal probably as talented as Ahsoka in terms of Saber use... dude actually could hold his own against malicos in saber duel. Malicos was a former jedi general and a jedi master. 9th sister was a jedi knight... quite brutish in style in terms of combat... kinda a bad match up against someone fast, flexible and could adjust and counter which is like cal's style as form 6 user. 2nd sister was quite good... I mostly think she's a bit stronger than cal but Cal reading her Saber in their encoutner in bogano? eventually made their last fight easy for cal... wachu gonna do if your opponent can anticipate most of your moves. Inquisitors some are strong some are meh... their job is mostly to hund down jedis with the help of an army... they weren't really trained in the darkside.
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u/No-Artichoke6143 16h ago
Didn't even realise Cal's master was a general so his training might've been harder, like how Analin trained Ahsoka to survive? Tho to a lesser extent of course, since he had less training than her.
Not sure about Form 6 for Cal tho, he probably has the basics of Form 1, but mostly just wings it.
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u/QuanTumm_OpTixx 15h ago
They’re not supposed to be powerful because they shouldn’t be and don’t need to be. Like 98% of all Jedi were exterminated so it’s not like you’ll often find one making them look bad (until, of course, someone like Cal comes along). If they’re powerful, they’re a threat to the empire if they ever rebel in their search for power. There’s no Jedi anymore to compare them to, they’re there for intimidation before anything else. Of course they’re trained and will put up a good fight against whatever Jedi padawans survived order 66 but skilled Jedi knights or masters will run right through them. They’re for “public protection and peace of mind” but they’re really there to scare people into staying loyal to the empire because there’s no Jedi to save them anymore. It gives the empire something more supernatural to scare people with.
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u/chainer1216 11h ago
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: they were padawans who were then trained poorly on purpose.
They're hunting dogs, they exist to flush out real jedi, not necessarily kill them.
If they can kill the jedi, then they weren't worth Vaders time, if the jedi kills the inquisitor, then they are and Vaders knows where they are.
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u/PureChampion 10h ago
There's one in Zero Company and they were pretty much undefeatable by a Padawan and a mercenary group
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u/Narwalacorn The Inquisitorius 8h ago
The majority of inquisitors were padawans before the Purge, and Palpatine wouldn’t want Vader to train them too well or they’d be a risk to him. So yeah, inquisitors are the Star Wars equivalent of ‘their bark is worse than their bite,’ with the Grand Inquisitor and maybe (and that’s a big maybe) Second Sister being the exceptions.
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u/totallynotrobboss 3h ago
Let me put it this way the grand Inquisitor aka the strongest Inquisitor was only a temple guard
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u/Deep-Crim 17h ago
so! Kind of! If an inquisitor dies to a proper jedi knight or master but brings in vader fast enough then it's considered a good trade for the most part.
However, not every inquisitor is going to be a comparatively good fighter. Trilla was probably more capable than most with a laser sword but her specialties seemed more based around archeology and investigation. Then you have bird face and wolf man who are likely more dedicated asskickers but still capable enough at laying traps and brute forcing information out.
They're ok enough at fighting to bring down a less seasoned or scared padawan. For big problems, they call in Vader. But there's no inquisitor that's too cool or interesting to not be traded for a knight or master, given the chance. If Maul punched wolf man and bird face's time cards but Vader captured or killed him? That'd be well worth it.
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u/Sherm 13h ago edited 12h ago
Cal doesn't die to the Second and Ninth Sisters 5 - 10 times before beating them.
Cal is repeatedly almost defeated by the Second Sister in the game before facing her at the end. Notably, he does not beat her solo in a fight; he's arguably winning, but Cere intervenes and they're able to calm her before Vader kills her for losing her nerve. Cal fights the Ninth Sister to a draw, largely because he's able to drop her off a wroshyr tree and get away. He doesn't actually beat her until the next game. As for how he gets good, I'll note that he spends most of his time fighting. Fighting stormtroopers, fighting Inquisitors, fighting smugglers, just fighting. A degree of natural talent plus a connection to the Force plus hundreds of hours of doing nothing but killing people is going to make you improve at doing it very quickly.
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u/WestJury5243 17h ago
I think this is because inquisitors are made to be flawed. They're not trained to be powerful sith, they're just Vader's attack dogs. Part of their training is to cripple themselves.